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Tariffs by the European Union against American biodiesel could be renewed. This article from Bloomberg says the EU is threatening to renew the tariffs of up to $323 per metric ton based on some probes against Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. (ADM), the world’s biggest corn processor, and Cargill Inc.

The inquiries will determine whether the expiry of the import taxes would be likely to lead to a “continuation or recurrence” of subsidization and dumping and of “injury” to EU producers, the European Commission, the 28-nation bloc’s trade authority in Brussels, said today in the Official Journal. The anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties were due to lapse tomorrow and will now stay in place during the investigations, which can last as long as 15 months.

The subsidy and dumping cases highlight tensions accompanying EU and U.S. efforts to expand global trade in biofuels. Biofuels, which also include ethanol, are a renewable energy from crops such as rapeseed, corn, wheat and sugar. In a separate trans-Atlantic commercial dispute, the EU in 2013 imposed a five-year anti-dumping duty on U.S. bioethanol.

U.S. exports to the EU of the type of biodiesel covered by the European anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties were valued at $1 billion a year and came to a virtual halt after the bloc imposed the levies in July 2009. In May 2011, the EU widened the duties to cover more blends and extended the levies to Canada, saying American exporters dodged the trade protection.

The investigation also comes as the EU is trying to meet its own goal of at least 10 percent of land transportation fuels to come from biofuels in 2020 and more than double the share of overall use of renewable energy in the EU to 20 percent.